Yeah, I could be wrong about that. The Wii I used to play on stopped reading discs recently, so I can’t really check. It did seem like the opponent recovered faster than Falco did, though.
This is what I want to know.
Falco seems to stomp the shit out of ROB, he just seems able to deal with everything ROB has (ROB being my main). I’ve used Mart with a fair degree of success against Falco, but honestly it seems like Marth just brings the fight to more even grounds.
Is there anywhere where Falco is straight disadvantaged?
Think Game & Watch and Zelda. Falco has a lot of matchups where he’s simply 50-50.
Also Metaknight, but that’s not really a surprise. He’s metaknight ffs.
i heard falco loses to GnW? how so? i heard it’s one of his worst matchups
a little thing i like to do is run towards them, short hop back and lazer. pisses people off. if they try to f-smash/throw you, they’ll miss because you jump back and you can grab them after the lazer hits. if they spot dodge, do it again and react accordingly
Falco is the most nerfed character online he is shit tier.
That being said I’ll play some gnw’s online from AIB when I get the chance and let yall know how it goes.
BTW for those that didn’t know you can cancel dash attack into usmash,
Falco is the fucking king of combos but is an extremely difficult character to use because of the technicality and timing he requires so it takes a while to use him effectively. The links in the link I provided will make you 100x better a falco player:tup:
he is one of the combo charaters in brawl, I give you that with some combos leading up to 50% damage, but don’t forget ZSS, who can combo off downsmash, fd-tilt up B, up tilt, neutral air, B, and running A. The first 2 I mentioned can be led into huge combos if timed right, and the third has stupid reach and will give you some nice dmg.
as far as playing with falco, so far most ppl have been saying to be a campy whore which does work, but its annoying and makes ppl look at you like this :< , other approch options other than the risky neutral air which is good, back air hits in front of falco a little is fast and has really high priority. a properly lined up forward air is a pretty good for an anti air approach too.
Btw great guide.
Looking back at the first post, I remember saying the same thing about falco, but after a few months of maing the whole roster LMAO, I fond him to be an awesome character. I still need some more work in developing some techniqs with him.
I tend to mix up the down throw chain with his reflector instead of spiking for his dash attack (I don’t know the term. His fucking jump kick)
You can’t throw after the reflector though. it’s mainly just to give your opponent that “wtf did he do that for” mentality.
it combo’s on everybody up until about 82%ish.
I’ve been playing Falco Non-stop for the past 3 days and fucking love him. I’ll try to post more stuff if I can remember/it hasn’t been posted.
:lol:
I figured out like 95% of that with in like 2 days.
Only thing I didn’t know was the frame data but I hard a rough idea what they were.
And when I mean “figured out” I really do mean I just fucking sat there and for hours figuring shit out. I didn’t read any guides or watch videos. I just played.
I hate brawl because it’s learning curve is retardedly easy.
For reference, I will post everything good with Falco here, because these boards are at best a wallowing pit for bad players with a few good people who mostly skim. Oftentimes, these players will misinform hapless SRK members who want to get good at the game.
Before I start: I am a better Falco than you so stfu, here are my credentials:
[LIST]
[]I am an avid tournament goer and Las Vegas holds weekly 50-man brawl tournaments.
[]I placed 9th in teams with Tudios at Brawl in Oakland, a 120-entry tournament.
[]I am a panelist for the Las Vegas SSBB power rankings.
[]I have played with SK92 (the best Falco) many times in local tournaments, driven SK92 to two major events, though I have never beaten him because he is a god damn monster.
[*]Anything I have posted in this thread I have tournament, wifi, or otherwise ranked match experience in doing and probably having it done to me.
[/LIST] All of these facts are factual and a lot of people posting in this thread are misinforming people.
Falco’s Chaingrab with D-throw:
Works from 0-40% on most characters (some characters, like Olimar and Marth, are too floaty to chaingrab past 15% or so or can up-B out, just d-air and regrab) and can be combo’d into a jab, shine, D-air, Dash Attack/Gatling Combo, N-air, weak tipper f-smash, or even a F-air if you really want. Most people end it with a D-air off the side of the stage for the win. This is techable with sick DI. N-air does slightly more damage and sets up for lasers but for the most part you will get more damage if you spike them in the end. Generally don’t follow people down unless you have an explicit plan because Falco’s aerials last forever and you’ll end up killing yourself or getting stage-spiked.
Other mindgames include waiting for people to airdodge/up-B/counterattack and following up with more grabs/a smash.
When close to the edge or facing away from the edge, you can boost pivot grab to regrab most heavy characters. Some characters, like Metabutt, can sometimes footstool you out of a pivot grab but the timing is strict and its usually worth about 20% to try.
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Boost (Pivot) Grab/Smash
You can cancel a dash attack into a grab or upsmash any time before the hitbox is inactive and retain the momentum from your dash attack.
Boost Grab:
Dash, C-stick down, and hit Z. You’ll slide slightly further than you normally would.
Reverse (aka Pivot) Boost Grab:
Dash, C-stick down, and hit back and Z. You’ll slide a significant distance, turn around and grab. The hitbox of the grab drags with you as you slide and is huge. This is a great attack and you can find all kinds of uses for it, but remember you’re vulnerable the whole time so don’t get crazy.
Usmash:
With normal controls, the best way to do it is to dash, slap down on the c-stick to initiate a dash attack, and then smash up and then quickly hit Z. A works also but the fingering is easier with the trigger. If you get a grab you hit Z too early, if you get a dash attack then you did it way too slowly or horribly wrong.
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Gatling Combo
On most characters at low% and heavy characters up through mid%, you can cancel a dash attack into an upsmash by flicking up on the c-stick just as you hit them. This is safer vs. shields and does around 28% total damage on hit and a lot of shield damage too. Generally if you hit a shield jab, or spotdodge afterward for safety.
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Falco’s sick Jab
Falco’s jab is sick. It has the reach of some character’s f-smash and a good puffy hitbox which extends fairly high and all the way to the ground. You can poke most characters off of the ledge with it too, I think. It doesn’t chain to anything, however AAA combo generally chains to shine.
You can also duck cancel your jab to get just the first hit, just tap down after you jab and release the stick, and you can do any move including more jabs.
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Edgeguarding
Falco gets about a 3/10 in the edgeguarding department. True, you can spike horrible players all day, but in reality, you don’t want to go very far below the ledge because the vert on your recovery is awful. Your B-air is going to be your main off-stage thing. If you get airdodged every time, just bait it and b-air later for the win. Try to hit with the strong hit.
B-air’s hitbox extends past Falco’s crotch and has a lot of priority to beat a lot of non-disjointed up-bs. All three spacies can be repeatedly knocked back by trading your b-air with their up-B; granted they’ll probably just side-b but good to know. Bowser’s up-b will also often trade with a forward facing b-air. Good to know in a pinch.
F-air can be used in some cases too but if you miss you’re wide open for a hot minute and they recover for free. One neat thing is that if you just run off and f-air at people like DK, it’ll drag them down with you and they can’t recover. This is not useful as far as I can tell. N-air is good too.
Anyway a lot of times vs. characters like Marth or Samus that I don’t really like to mess around with offstage, I’ll just try to keep them low with lasers and high b-airs to make them grab the edge. Falco’s d-smash and f-smash both hit people off the side of the stage, and both can punish get-up attacks and the f-smash can even hit people out of their jump. You can also use B-air, hooray!
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Laser setups
Falco can SHL in this game but it is much much slower than in Melee and you can get two lasers. You can also jump backwards to get the backflip animation and a slightly lower laser without killing yourself. Your lasers also can no longer hit many crouching characters. Still, they are very very good and spammable. Here’s a few good setups that you’ll want to learn:
SHDL to boost pivot grab in close
SHDL to running upsmash is essentially a true combo vs. airborne opponents.
SHDL to dodge vs. Up-B spammers
SHL to jab
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Kill Setups
The best way to land an f-smash is to out prioritize something with it, like a predicted jab or many character’s f-airs (not Marth’s obviously). Other setups include vs. wake up attacks (you can charge it out of their range), vs. predictable dodges, and as a spacer if they roll behind (hits slightly behind you with the right timing). Its fairly safe, they’ll need to punish perfectly to counteract it. Also you can use the aerial spacing tricks above to bait a grab and then f-smash.
I like to save my u-smash, using it only once or twice before my opponents get to about 110%. It’s faster than the f-smash and quite powerful undiminished, but vulnerable to DI and not as safe.
D-smash is another great kill move near an edge, and if they DI wrong it sends people at an abysmal angle. Its safe against grabs but not against shield dropping, of course with the right spacing. Powershielding into a d-smash or running u-smash can be a great kill move.
Other neat kill setups include short hopping to bait a dodge, and then b-airing at the end of your jump for the strong hit, and f-throws into edgeguards. Mostly though, you want to be getting a solid 30%+ kill rate on your D-throw to spike against characters with mediocre recoveries to solidify your natural character advantage.
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D-air as an approach
D-air does about 10% or so and hits grounded opponents and has a lot of priority. A good approach is to dash, SH instant D-air, and then hold back on the stick for the duration. If they try to grab you they’ll miss and give you a free grab or hit. If they dodge you’ll be nicely spaced, just watch out for f-tilts and such. If it hits they’ll bounce up and you can follow up with most aerials, f-smashes/u-smashes etc to try and get them off the stage.
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N-air
N-air has very little lag on it so if you shorthop it and wait for the peak of your jump to hit A, you’ll get most of the hits in and can follow with a jab or grab or something neat. Its not safe against a shieldgrab but as with the d-air you can space back and mindgame. Its also a surprisingly good platform poker and anti air.
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Side-B Poke
Side-B is safer in this game than it was in Melee. You can use it to punish or poke from a distance, just short hop it so you’re just above the ground.
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Airdodge traps
Falco’s best airdodge trap is the FH U-air to B-air, because you can either double jump the b-air or not depending on whether or not they try to fastfall through or not. Basically use the c-stick to execute the aerials, try to do the u-air so that you’ll beat out their attack if it comes but still as late as possible, and then b-air if they airdodge. Your side-to-side air control is at best OK so don’t be too miffed at me if this doesn’t work every time.
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Teammates
Game and Watch is the best teammate, followed by DeDeDe, Snake, and Metaknight. Blab all you want, this is the god damn truth and the high-damage-knockback-awesomegrabsandedgeguarding nature of these characters make them tough to beat in teams. Marth is also good.
Falco is not very high on the teams tier list. He’s fairly quick, somewhat good at getting people off the stage, and somewhat powerful, but he just doesn’t exude killing power. His strengths are more in his spacing and mindgames and damage building, so power characters like Bowser and DK can be good compliments, while other good teams characters like ROB and Kirby can be good too, but the top 5 are the top 5 for a reason.
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Random Matchups
Metaknight:
Chaingrab to 40% and spike. Try to keep him disabled with your jab and don’t side B recover into downsmashes. You can interrupt his glide attack safely with a well-timed B-air. Save your u-smash for kills.
vs. Tornado, swivel the control stick and c-stick to try to smash DI out, and spam airdodge and oftentimes you can punish it.
vs. Up-B, you can simply counter with a D-air spike with quick reflexes, or you can punish the glide attack with a spotdodge d-smash with AMAZING timing to beat his D-smash.
Vs. spammed ground game spam your D-air approach and use your dodges wisely
Vs. spammed air game use your lasers and jab
Vs. Spammed B moves shield and punish and try to keep your shield up.
The matchup is still VERY HARD for Falco.
Snake
Snake is pretty easy, they have more stuff to learn about the matchup than you do. The thing is that Snake does very heavy damage with his tilts and can land some good F-smashes for very low% kills against Falco.
A few tricks.
vs. F-tilt: You can shield the first hit, and spotdodge the second for a free grab, or roll behind him to cross up. Watch for him to catch on and just drop your shield and jab to grab for a mixup, or anything else you can think of.
vs. Grenades/mines/etc: Use your reflector and don’t get blown up.
Vs. 3 hit Jab->F-tilt->Ftilt2 same as f-tilt, your shield takes a hurting though.
vs. Mortar slide. You can jab him out of it and also punish it if he ends too close to you with a f-smash on shield. If he spams it just shoot grounded lasers, eventually he’ll go back to grenades.
You can also reflect the projectile from his u-smash so it doesn’t damage you.
U-tilt can also be really good to pop him up as Snake’s air game is weak.
Killing:
Just keep knocking him off the stage. 0-40 chaingrab him and then spike, and from there you can follow him down and try to spike again, or you can grab him out of his cipher and NOT HIT HIM; he doesn’t get his jumps or up-b back and has to use C4 to recover, taking tons of %, and plus, you can laser the crap out of him when he does this and go for B-airs when he comes back, or try to stage spike him if he techs the wall.
ROB:
Another good matchup for Falco, ROB has some trouble killing you, just watch out for a fresh N-air. If he downthrows you expect a u-air and try to airdodge or jump it. DI away to avoid getting gimped and don’t waste your jump by jumping into a laser or Gyro and you should be fine. Your D-air is so golden in this matchup its not funny, you can really just be on ROB all the time with it.
As far as edgeguarding goes, edgehog him! His up-B will cause him to bounce off the stage and you can drop off and jump up and B-air him which is nifty, and the invulnerability is good for dodging rising N-airs.
DeDeDe: Eat laser spam, fat man! Punish his recovery, chaingrab him, and you shouldn’t have major problems. Don’t get b-aired to death
Pikachu: Hard matchup. His downthrow chains you to about 25%, so DI and jump after that, and you can reflect his jolt and thunder which are pains to other characters. Basically the idea is to never ever ever side B into his F-smash or thunder and he’ll find he has trouble killing you. For this purpose I recommend occasionally using your up-B for its long startup. Other stuff includes obvious chaingrabs, and then I like to try to D-smash after he quick attack recovers because sometimes they don’t get the edge perfectly. You can DI out of his d-smash by mashing up, good to know, and if you DI right thunder should never hit you in the air, just airdodge ASAP.
Everyone else I think is pretty standard, I haven’t come up with much for Olimar yet though.
Pretty good shit you have there. Shame that you didn’t join earlier when the boards weren’t dead.
Does all that info apply to all brawl matches? =P
sethlon vs sk92 @ evo2k9 BET IT!
All brawl matches with Falco are more about tossing opponent offstage and using Falco’s sick glide toss in conjunction with his B moves to score silly item KOs.
SK92 should beat Sethlon, he’s already beaten him at AZone and that was before he knew most of the advanced techs, and he improves every day and places higher at tournaments.